For hockey goalkeepers, games without missed goals are not very good – a common occurrence. For many, “crackers” remain a rarity. Yes, such that their number over the entire career can be counted on the finger of one or at most two hands. But in today's match of the National Hockey League championship between the New York Islanders and the Philadelphia Flyers, two shutouts were recorded at once. This has never happened before this season.
Both teams are moving at approximately the same pace, as expected, alternating very bright victories with painful defeats. But the Islanders' results attract a little more attention than the Flyers' position.
Last season, the New York club made it to the playoffs literally on the shoulders of its goalkeeper duo, which consists of Russians Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov. This couple is rightfully called one of the best in the entire league, and Sorokin achieved universal recognition, becoming one of the three main contenders for the Vezina Trophy in 2023. It was Ilya who played a huge role in the “islanders” reaching the playoffs, after which received a rich contract.
The 8-year agreement worth $66 million will begin only from the 2024/25 season. But such a contract cannot be called an advance. Rather, it was the desire of the Islanders management to play it safe and keep one of the best goalkeepers in the world in their ranks. But the club of 81-year-old Lou Lamoriello did nothing in fact to play in the next regular season not only with Sorokin, but also with the help of field players. Apparently, the Isles boss found the idea of relying on the Russian goalkeeper attractive and reliable. But so far everything says the opposite: the same Ilya is still getting into the season and, behind a series of incredible saves, he can miss goals in episodes that are not obvious to himself.
In the match with the Flyers, everything was limited to only saves. More precisely, a large number of salvations. Philadelphia, led by John Tortorella, plays strangely but completely fearlessly. The “Pilots” in New York noticeably outplayed the local “Islanders” and surpassed them in accurate shots. In just three periods of regular time, Sorokin fired 36 shots on target, including some very dangerous ones. They also made commentators and North American journalists ooh and ahh at how reliably Ilya played. The Russian didn’t miss anything in overtime either. As well as his counterpart Sam Ersson. If Sorokin scored his second shutout in just one season, then the Philadelphia goalie scored his second in his entire NHL career.
“”A very important evening for me. Sorokin is one of the best goalies in the world. This the guy is truly magnificent. The fact that I just got the opportunity to compare myself with him has already become a very important moment in my career,” Ersson did not hide his joy after the match.
This is not surprising. The Swedish goalkeeper not only dried up the game, stopping 25 shots, but also helped Philadelphia win, not allowing the Islanders to convert a single attempt in the shootout. Sorokin was less fortunate: he saved three shots in the shootout, but failed the fourth. What’s doubly offensive for Ilya is the fact that before the series of post-match shots, he played an insanely intense match, making 40 saves! It's sad that the efforts didn't pay off.
But even despite the defeat, the Russian added another “cracker” to his asset. How is this possible? It's simple: shootouts are not included in goalkeeper statistics. Thus, Sorokin recorded the 18th shutout of his career in the NHL championships. It took him only 149 matches to reach this mark. And this is the eighth result in the entire NHL in history (since the 1929/30 season). Pekka Rinne and Glenn Hall also scored 18 shutouts in 149 matches. Only Tony Esposito (26 clean sheets in the same period), Terry Savchuk (24), Frank Brimsek (22), Jacques Plante (21) and Turk Broda (20) are higher. Sorokin also took third place in the history of the Islanders in the number of shutouts and is so far second only to Glenn Resch (25 shutouts) and Billy Smith (22). Among Russian goalies, he has the seventh highest score in NHL history and is behind Evgeni Nabokov (59), Nikolai Khabibulin (46), his teammate Semyon Varlamov (40), Sergei Bobrovsky (39), Ilya Bryzgalov (34) and Andrei Vasilevsky (32).
But if the fact of a dry match performed by Sorokin in itself is not surprising, then the presence of a shutout during a lost match still stands out. If only because such episodes happen infrequently. Even more. In the entire history of the NHL championships, including today's match between the Isles and the Flyers, there have been only six cases recorded when the goalkeeper of one of the teams scored a shutout with 40 saved shots or more, but still lost the match in a shootout. At the same time, it’s funny that the last such episode occurred almost a year ago – on December 20, 2022. And its main character was… Ilya Sorokin!
Then the Islanders goalkeeper fought to the last against the then-reigning champions from the Colorado Avalanche and for three periods made 46 saves in overtime, but lost in the shootout. Amazing coincidence.
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